Pros: Lakewood is a fantastic and well kept park. I don't think the previous reviews reflect the quality of this course. With a redesign and major landscaping work this place is pretty cool. It has water, elevation, open, and heavy woods.

The tee pads are pretty awesome. They are plenty big. I have never seen a course with the diamond pattern around them. There is a diamond screen laid on the ground and filled with small gravel. It looks great and eliminates errosion.

The fairways in the open were mowed nicely and the wooded holes were very clean.

Awesome catching baskets. Chainstars are great.

They were not complete but on many holes they had the 10 meter circle marked and were going to fill in the circle with wood chips.

3 pretty nice par 4's that are tough to get your 3. Those are holes #7, 8, & 10.

The course starts and finishes strong. Hole #1 plays across the water onto a sloped green.
#18 is a very fun finishing hole. You play from the top of the hill with the road backstopping it. Great hole!

Some very interesting wooded holes with elevation coming into play.

Cons: Navigation was pretty difficult in a few areas. Some signs would make this much more enjoyable to play.

I could tell they were still working on the course in a few areas. Once complete this place is going to be sweet!

Other Thoughts: Lakewood was our final course before heading home. We had played 10 courses in the 3 days prior. I was heavily fatigued after playing Minneapolis/St. Paul best course. This course got me pumped up to finish out. It was fun! Make a trip and stay a week in the area. It has some of the best courses i've played. Great grouping of courses.

Pros: The course certainly starts out impressively enough at # 1, with it's extra large concrete teepad with the steel grating around it. And then you have the landscape rock outlining the bench and garbage can. Wow! On later holes, the parks dept. was out with heavy equipment building up basket areas and/or teepad areas. What great support you players get here from your parks and recreation people! Remember to thank them when you see them working in the parks. I'll give this this course another half point on it's rating just for their great support.

The holes through the woods are tight forcing you to hit your lines.

# 18 is a masterpiece here and would be on any course. At 345' downhill, it's a great finishing hole but what I really liked about it was, it's not just a "grip it and rip it" throw. It has a window there, it's fairly large, but it still makes you think about it.

Cons: Navigation was not easy for me playing alone the first time. It didn't seem to follow a natural path. This course could benefit from some next tee signs.

And there are an abundance of anhyser holes here. Lefties who are always complaining should find a little happiness here.

Playing on a hot, broiling day I guess I missed the crowds, including the disc-stealing vandals.

Other Thoughts: Nice mix of open and wooded technical holes here. Some excellent engineering work being done by the parks dept.?? (I think). It's nice to see a course that's being upgraded and improved upon instead of the many that I see that are slowly falling into dis-repair and decay.

• Nickname of "Lefty Hills" (due to the abundance of right curving holes favoring the backhand throw of a left handed player) is no longer quite as overpowering.

• The new holes:
1. Have a great variety of elevation
2. Add a feeling of a need for precision and technique.
3. Finally make this a full 18!!

• There has been a lot of work put into improving the tee areas and removing excess underbrush.(all holes now have concrete tees)

Cons: • As has been mentioned on prior posts there seems to be a few hoodlums present in the woods. I personally threw a disc on hole
# 9 which landed nicely in the fairway unfortunately before I managed to get to it to make my next shot it was swiped. It is highly recommended that on all blind holes (holes in which the basket isn't in plain view from the tee) that a member of your party run ahead to check that the hole is clear of both shady characters and parties that may be ahead of you. (this shouldn't detract from the course it is just an unfortunate reality)

• Not the most beginner friendly course with a few very long holes and a few very tight ally shots.

• Hole #10 is a plain and simple combination of the former 10 and 11. The basket of hole 10 was simply removed. This leaves the hole feeling unfinished and somewhat unpleasant to play. (Perhaps a new tee location is in order?)

• Rating of holes with pars other than 3 makes comparing scores with others confusing and skewed (Just make them all par 3's and man up!!)

Other Thoughts: • The improvements on this course have definitely bumped it from a low 3 up to a high 4 rating.

• The order of holes including the new ones is:
o Holes 1-9 as usual
o Hole 10 (modified 10+11)
o Hole 11 (old hole 12 from the tee in the trees out across the field towards the playground)
o New holes (Walk back up into the woods along the fence, first tee located a few feet down the trail)
o Hole 17 (old hole 13 big uphill shot)
o Hole 18 (old hole 14 and everyone's favorite downhill finish)

• I have heard many complaints about the difficulty of hole # 7. This hole is not hinging on the player having a huge arm it is about the placement of throws. I do not by any means have a big arm but with thoughtful navigation I'm able to play par (3) much of the time.

• Thank you to all of those who put the time and effort in to really making this course great!

P.S. If anyone sees or has someone try to sell them my light blue(turquoise) star sidewinder with a name on the inside rim (the disc that was snatched on hole # 9) please let me know. I miss her.

Pros: -A good mix of wooded and open field shots.
-Just added holes to make it a full 18.
-Major upgrades in tees and hole placements-they now have concrete pads for all the holes, and have used landscaping stones around some pins and tees. It looks much better than recent years.
-There's a new disc store about 3 miles from here.
-Mowed fairways and well maintained grass.
-Hole 10 is a challenging hole through the woods that really makes you hit your lines if you want to make par. My favorite wooded hole.
-18 is one of my favorite closing holes in the cities, with a long downhill shot that is partially protected by some trees. If you don't have anyone behind you, it's fun to empty the bag on this one.
-The woods make a cool respite from the sun on hot days.
-There are benches on the holes where things usually get backed up.
-The woods aren't terribly thick, so if you get a bad ricochet, you will find your disc pretty easy.
-All holes have nice baskets, with most holes having wood chips around the pin.

Cons: -Can get quite busy at times with people who aren't very courteous. You often have to ask to play through and groups of 8 or 9 all play together, leading to a very slow couple of holes.
-Layout can be confusing, so make sure to look at a map first. There are a couple times where the next teepad you see after finishing a hole is not the correct one. A couple "Next Tee" signs would make this course much better.
-If it has rained in the past week, chances are there will still be water on a couple of the holes.
-The new wooded holes are very unforgiving, with no obvious lines to the pin. You just have to throw and hope you don't get a bad ricochet off of the trees. They have also left a bunch of 3-inch high little stumps where they cut down trees, leading to plenty of tripping if you don't watch where you are walking.
-Called "Leftwood" for a reason-Plenty of doglegs-right and dead straight shots. Gets kind of boring throwing the same anhyzer shots over and over.
-Plenty of bugs, so make sure to bring bug spray
-No practice basket

Other Thoughts: I rated this course a 3, since it is a full 18 with not much else nearby. It's an alright course, but it gets repetitive after a couple rounds. Nothing special here, but stop by if you are in the area. The city has been putting some work into this course recently, which has made it much better. A good mix of holes keeps this course from being completely dull.

Pros: This course has it all open, wooded, long, short mostly right but some left. The use of the elevation change here is perfect on hole sixteen you shoot over a valley and through some woods and into the open. Every time I come here these days it seems they are making this course better they added landscaping rocks around almost all the tee boxes and a few boulders around some of the greens.

Cons: Confusing to newcomers ask somebody most of the people that play here will gladly point you in the right direction. A little foolery and groups of morons not playing the course in correct order. One occasion of a poacher picking up my disc even after I told him it was down there and let him play through because his group was 1 person smaller than mine I ran him down and got it back.

Other Thoughts: Be careful on hole eighteen if you shoot RHBH you can turn a disc over right at a playground full of kids if you hyzer too much to the left there is a nasty swamp that is sure to prolong your round quite a bit if you toss one in there.

Pros:
- Gorgeous course with mowed "fairways", long grass "rough", and wood chip "greens"
- Great use of elevation, especially hole 18 - pictures and videos don't do it justice
- Except for hole 10, every hole was very par-able, but also challenging.

Cons:
- The wooded holes weren't as nice, and the mosquitoes were bad
- Standing water on a few holes
- I can see why they call it "Leftwood", several dog leg right holes

Other Thoughts:
For the first 8 holes and the last 2 holes, I felt like I was on a real golf course, or at least one designed for disc golf. Minnesotans may be crazy for enduring an 8 month winter, but they know how to do a disc golf course the right way.

Pros: - Nice technical course
- Mix of different throws and distances
- Great baskets and wood chips
- Has some great elevation shots
- Partly wooded and partly open
- Nice fairways
- Not too many bugs for a wooded course

Cons: - Could lose a disc in the thick woods
- Needs better signs
- Susceptible to standing water after rain

Other Thoughts: Got turned around in the course and didn't know where to go first time I played.

Pros: Lakewood hills is a sprawling course set on some rolling hills in White Bear Lake, MN. It weaves in and out of the woods and up and down the hills. The course features quite a few doglegs to the right. RHBH throwers will need to throw a lot of anhyzers and straight shots. It's nicknamed "Leftwood".

The course has nice ample concrete tee pads. Most holes have both long and short tees.

A wide variety of terrain is used, presenting a diverse array of challenges. You will have to throw a few as far as you can, navigate wooded fairways, throw up and down hill, to the left, and to the right. A few holes are ace-able with a putter, a few are nigh unreachable for even the biggest arms. The long holes make for a challenging 3 and there aren't many <200' gimme 2's.

It's near a YMCA, 4 softball fields, and a picnic area. There is a working water fountain, bathrooms, picnic area, and a play ground next to the course.

On Sunday afternoons in the summer there is a league for just a few dollars. More info on the website.

There are reasonably nice wooden benches on the majority of the holes.

Nice baskets.

The course sees a low to medium level of traffic. Not much hassle involved with playing here. *Since the expansion a week ago, the traffic level during peak times has picked up a lot. Word of mouth seems to be bringing in a lot of first timers*

Cons: The course is not easy to navigate. There is little to no signage and the way it's laid out doesn't flow very naturally. Get a map or ask someone to show you the way. * I don't consider this to be a big detractor but, this problem is now even worse with the new holes. They flow pretty well, but the course is even harder to navigate now. Expect hoppers who play the course in the wrong order*.

There used to be bag holders on a bunch of holes but people have broken them all and vandalized the benches.

Other Thoughts: Lakewood was recently expanded to 18 holes by combining old 10 (651) and 11 to form a long, wooded, challenging par 4, and adding in 5 new holes. The new holes are tightly wooded and add another dimension to Lakewood. Bumping my old score of 3.5 up to 4.0 to account for the new layout. Great course for Eastsiders.

Pros: Fun long course. Some woods, some open, elevation used well. I liked the new holes in the woods but they still need some work. This course has everything. Long, Short, Right, Left, Up & Down. I have not played this course since last year and am excited to see what they have done with the new holes.

Pros: Long holes make it fun to play, wooded areas give a nice challenge. It is a fairly nice course I have only played it twice but I do enjoy it.

Cons: Very popular course so there is some downtime between holes. I was there and since it is right behind the Y a bunch of little kids where playing in the woods so I elected to not play it. There are places that you could lose a disc very easily. The layout of the course is a little confusing if you are not familiar with it.